Fat Tuesday - Culmination
he final day of carnevale. The final day of <em>carnevale.</em> For the final time, we costume up and head down our narrow alleyway to the Via Garibaldi and back on the fondamenta.
The costumes are wearing a bit. At first, we were so enthralled to be in them, to see these strange visages of our alter-egos. But, now, it’s getting a touch tedious. And the mask, although it has been beneficial in keeping my face warm, is getting a bit too familiar.
Perhaps there is something to the notion of costuming differently every day. I don’t know. For one who kicked the suit and tie long ago, it’s getting reminiscent of an unnecessary formality. Even our relatively simple costumes are a lot more stuff than anything modern. Revelers in replete sixteenth/seventeenth century costumes must spend a good deal of their day just getting dressed and made up.
Given the newfound familiarity, it’s hard to believe that people stayed masked for up to six months out of the year in the early days of carnevale (as near as I’ve been able to research, carnevale was invented here.) But that’s the historical record. The desire to remain anonymous for various illicit pursuits — gambling and trysts, primarily — was strong.
Once again, we’re caught up in the throngs and we press our way to San Marco — once again, we photograph and are photographed.
I haven’t yet been able to cover the promenade. The city has built a platform and a ramp at the west end of the piazza. Every day at 4:00 (except the previously mentioned Monday before Fat Tuesday), the best costumers come and promenade down the ramp, like models at Givenchy. Access is public, but tough — first come, first entrenched. You have to either stand on one of the viewing platforms, or at the rail to get an unobstructed view, and the crowds pile in early.
I decide today is the day to get this event. I’m committed. I stake a position out at the rail, just opposite the end of the ramp. I’m close, I have an unobstructed view, and I’m staying put. For two hours, before things get underway.
My neighbors and I get a bit testy when the stagehands come and push the barricade further away from the stage — against us. Insultive Italian flies back and forth across the barricade. But it’s still the closest “seat” in the house.
Rose hangs outside the square, either resting or wandering among the sights. I look around, and there appear to be wonderful things happening, but I’m staying put.
My back begins to hurt.
Finally, after standing in one place for two long hours, the crowd thickening around me, the promenade gets underway. The costumers are led down the ramp, one by one to the emcee at the end. I’m shooting and framing as they come, and…
Photographically, it’s a total bust (these pics are from elsewhere around the piazza.)
I snap a few more shots as the participants come down the ramp and descend into the open space below (between the ramp and the barricade) but nothing is working. I can tell. There’s too much junk in the way, too much junk behind — not the least of which is a TV crew that is inside the perimeter and junking up the views. They’re getting great shots, but I’m not.
Then, again, maybe they aren’t, either.
The costumers are out of their element on the stage — they’re not sure what to play to.
There are no columns, no archways, no campanile, no monuments or lamp-posts, no gondola docks, no Palazzo Ducale. Many wind up playing to the stage because they don’t know what else to do.
Beyond the photographic loss, my back is really beginning to complain. Finally, I can’t take any more, and I turn to face the crowd. With a gasp, the sea of faces visibly turns in demeanor, registering vocal dismay.
“Ah, no…” they murmur, with a frown. But, I can’t help it, my back is just killing me.
I hold my monopod against the crowd — my dividing staff — and begin to move. It’s like pushing through brambles as the crowd in front presses their neighbors to let me pass, my cape catching on anything and everything in their hands, on their clothes, between tightly-packed hips. But, eventually, I work back to the less densely populated regions and join Rose to explain the situation.
At least the crowd that had been behind me now has a better view.
We sit and discuss our observations for the next few minutes while the promenade continues, and I rest my back. We agree the square itself, or the gondola docks, or even the Academia Bridge have been much more interesting, much better backdrops for the costumes than the stage.
In those surroundings, the costumers play much more naturally than on a stage that has no context. Tuck that away for future reference.
What to do next? We haven’t explored the area directly north of San Marco — why don’t we do that?
This sounds good. We get back on our feet and leave the square.
And promptly get joyously lost, again. A left here, a right there — no let’s go left, again. Through the narrow passages that suddenly open onto an undiscovered piazza, and just as suddenly close up again into another piece of the labyrinth.
What will we encounter, next? Who knows? Let’s turn right, here!
Shops and shops — we find more costume shops in which to gaze and poke, and try things on. Research for future visits. Pen and paper shops, with Murano glass calligraphy pens — we’ve been eyeing these, but just can’t figure when we’d have the time to play with them, so we pass. Jewelry and, of course, clothing shops, galore. Occasionally, we bump into another costumed group and we exchange picture snapping sessions.
Over a few more canali, into a few more shops — it’s evening now, and my eye is caught by what looks like a major unidentifiable somewhere at the end of the calle: there’s a large edifice angled away from us, opening onto a piazza. What could it be? A newly, as yet undiscovered portion of the labyrinth? We walk toward it, and recognition hits: We’re back at San Marco — a different corner from where we had entered.
All things Venetian begin and end at San Marco.
The hour is late and it’s time to return. But this time, we decide we want to try a back way, so we parallel the fondamenta on a calle a couple hundred meters in, picking our way over this bridge and that canale, hoping we don’t find ourselves back at San Marco or, worse, at the train station.
We go past the Arsenale — the real Arsenale that was the naval base for the formerly powerful city-state, the main door fronted with a garden of sculptures absconded from places around the (then known) world. Then through a rather bruto alley that looks warehouse-ish. Were it not for the company of several people walking with us, apparently about their business and knowing where they are going, we would hesitate and attempt to return to the familiar.
Another left, another right, another canale — a dead end, a split decision and backtrack, and … Via Garibaldi dead ahead!
We congratulate ourselves over plates of pasta, back at the apartment.